


little beast

by slagfable



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-04 23:56:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4157772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slagfable/pseuds/slagfable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one-shots, each inspired by a paragraph of the poem 'Little Beast' by Richard Siken and loosely tied together into a semi-coherent story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	little beast

  1

_An all-night barbeque. A dance on the courthouse lawn._

_The radio aches a little tune that tells the story of what the night_

_is thinking. It's thinking of love._

_It's thinking of stabbing us to death_

_and leaving our bodies in a dumpster._

_That's a nice touch, stains in the night, whiskey and kisses for everyone._

_Tonight, by the freeway, a man eating fruit pie with a buckknife_

_carves the likeness of his lover's face into the motel wall. I like him_

_and I want to be like him, my hands no longer an afterthought._

 

* * *

 

 

The festival is stretching into the night, and the biggest ruckus is over. There’s still the occasional outburst of noise from the guild, but for the most part, it’s nothing but quiet laughter echoing from the doors as everyone winds down. There’s a tipped over chair, a spilled drink not far from where Gray’s sitting in the grass out back near the pool. Soft music is pouring out over the voices coming from the back door of the guild. It’s one of the best festivals of the year, right as summer begins. The evening is cool, the air threatening to drop its payload of dew over everything as the night closes in.

Gray’s drunk and he’s not entirely sure how or why he’s out here, but the air feels good and the moon is settling over the water, making it sparkle. So he lingers, drink in one hand, his shirt long gone though the pants seem to want to stay a while at the party. A warmth settles in next to him, radiating a familiar heat and bringing with it the smell of smoke and something ashy but not at all unpleasant.

“Your drink is slushy,” Natsu says as he settles himself down, laying back in the grass with his arms folded behind his head.

“Your drink’s on fire,” Gray says, not taking his eyes off the beach because Natsu’s drink is indeed on fire. Mira makes them special, over pours because she knows the fire dampens the alcohol. Getting Natsu drunk is very low on the list of good ideas anyone’s ever had, but the beginning of summer is here, and Erza will scare him sober enough to avoid the more costly damages. Probably.

“You’d think it would taste good, but it doesn’t.” Gray can hear the clink of ice in Natsu’s glass, the rustle of grass around his body.

“I’m telling Mirajane.” Gray teases, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“I meant the fire, not the drink. Don’t tell her that either.” Gray actually does huff out a laugh and curls his toes deeper into the grass, finding a lingering warmth from the sunlight still in the roots.

“I won’t,” He promises, draining the last of his own drink. He sets the empty cup aside, laying himself out on the grass next to Natsu, staring up at the sky. “What are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be trying to fight someone?” He asks, daring to look over out of the corner of his eye.

“Only person I like fighting is out here,” Natsu says, and Gray watches him wrapping and unwrapping a hand in the edge of his scarf.

They go quiet for a while, the booze lulling them into something comfortable, and Gray wonders if Natsu knows he does that. If playing with his scarf that way is something unconscious. If it’s soothing in the way a missing shoe or shirt feels. He’s out right staring now, perfectly pliable from the drinks and unwilling to care if he should get caught. He watches Natsu lick his lips, watches the way his eyelashes flutter on his cheeks when he blinks. Gray always denies himself this, even just innocent looks, because he knows where looks lead. But it’s the beginning of summer, when even the strongest resolve can melt away like the frost still clinging from spring. His cheeks are warm, and as he rolls a little the grass feels good against them.

Natsu’s perfect like this; smooth, even breathing, a piece of hair clinging over his ear.  Gray wouldn’t want him any other way and that’s the problem in its entirety. The fact that Gray should want him at all. He can’t stop himself from anything it seems, as he reaches out and touches the scarf for himself, forever surprised each time he’s allowed to. Like now, when Natsu doesn’t stop him and lets Gray take a handful. The only thing more surprising about being able to touch it so freely is how soft it actually is. Gray can feel a spot under one of his fingers, a harder string of stitches, and for first time he realizes how much care Natsu must put into his prized scarf, repairing rips or worn holes.

Gray wants to know what it’s like to be fixed by Natsu.

Gray wants to be mended, to have pieces of himself he didn’t know were out of place be put right again. He loses himself in the thought, lets it wrap around him like a lover’s embrace. Gray almost doesn’t realize when he looks back up that Natsu’s looking back at him now, both of them in the grass facing each other. He says Gray’s name, but Gray doesn’t hear it despite how close he is. And he is close, close enough to watch the curve of Natsu’s bottom lip as Gray’s name curls out along the corners of his mouth.

Gray doesn’t say anything back, but keeps letting himself look, eyes sweeping up and hungry, taking in the color of Natsu’s eyes from this close up. They look like ancient jade jewelry he’d seen in a museum once a long, long time ago. They're green flecked with yellow and you could drown in those eyes. It’s not okay, probably, but he’s drunk and he’s allowed to look his fill.  It’s summer and he’s allowed to. It’s Natsu and he’s allowed to. Natsu means summer and-

When he thinks about kissing Natsu, he wants his mouth to be hot, like he imagined, he wants it to taste like fire or cinnamon, or even a warm coal. So he does, and Natsu’s mouth is cool from the ice in his drink, and he kisses innocently. Gray doesn’t remember shutting his eyes but they open a little at the shock of Natsu’s hand in fisting into his hair. It’s an innocent kiss but Natsu’s kissing back. His tongue tastes like juice and whiskey, not at all like fire or ash. Gray makes a sound at how emotionally sincere it is.

Even in kisses, Natsu Dragneel’s emotional sincerity isn’t something to doubt. It hits him like a brick, like Natsu’s fist would hit him. But that’s what they’ve always done, hit each other with fists, with emotionally sincere bricks, and Gray takes it better than any punch.

He’s so caught up in it he doesn’t remember how he got on his back, how he ended up like this, one hand in Natsu’s hair and the other balled up in that deceivingly soft dragon scale scarf. Suddenly he’s the one being kissed, being eaten like fire, his mouth devoured with the appetite only a dragon slayer could have and it’s so right. Natsu’s hand is warm on his chest, the other pulling tight at his hair and Gray can’t breathe for fear of breaking the moment-

“ _Natsuuuuuu!_ ” Lucy’s voice cuts through the night like a dagger right into Gray’s heart and his skin burns where Natsu’s hands were on it, because Natsu’s gone already, next to Gray on his side with his mouth red, face dazed and looking like Erza caught him with his hands on her risque romance novels again. “Come get Happy, he’s falling asleep!”

Gray swallows thickly, licking his lips and still tasting juice and whiskey. He looks to Natsu and wants to say _something_ , but nothing comes out. They give each other mirrored looks of half formed words, and Gray’s desperate to remember how to breathe normally when Natsu starts to stand. Gray lies back in the grass, lies to himself when he says the moment’s gone, that this won’t happen again.

“Naaatsuuuuuu, what are you doing? Are you two fighting again?” She asks, holding on to the doorway as she sways drunkenly on her heels. Natsu heads back inside, looking over his shoulder and stilling, before shaking his head when Lucy calls out his name again. Gray doesn’t see it, doesn’t hear what Natsu tells her.

 

And just like that they’re gone.

 

Gray’s alone again, like he was when he started. He lays in the grass, watching the stars instead of the ocean now. He tries to pick out the constellations that Lucy’s taught him. He licks his lips and tries to find the taste of juice and whiskey still there. Once, he’d never let himself look too long, but now he’s gone and kissed Natsu. He didn’t get punched. Instead he was kissed back, and he tries to process it.

He absolutely doesn’t try at all, really. He doesn’t think about what it means, or what it could mean now, or tomorrow or a year from now. He doesn’t think about if Natsu returns these feelings or if he was just being Natsu. It would be so like him to jump in head first and kiss someone back without fear.

He thinks about the stitches in the scarf. He thinks about his own hands. He wonders how dragon scales could feel so soft, how lips singed by fire so much could be even softer.

In the end, he decides that maybe, just maybe, he can let himself be simply happy about something for once.

So he goes inside, gets another drink, allows himself one dance with Juvia to the tune of Mira’s guitar. He may not love her, but everyone loves the smile of the person that loves them, even if they don’t love them back. He doesn't walk her home to Fairy Hills when she asks, instead he finds a perfect excuse to slip away. He walks himself home, touching his mouth once in a while like a blushing school girl. It's summer now, the warmth is coming, he's allowed to be happy. 

 

When he falls asleep finally, he dreams about eyes you could drown in, a sharp dangerous smile, and his hands wrapped up in a mended scarf. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you don't know this poem, [you can read it here.](http://words-end-here.livejournal.com/29499.html)
> 
> If you do know this poem, abandon all hope of a happy ending here. Sorry.
> 
> I've sat on this for a while and well, it's time to stop fretting and chuck it out into the wild. 
> 
> I hope you liked it!


End file.
